Life-size Frontal and Dorsal Body Images on the Shroud

photos by Giuseppe Enrie, 1931, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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No paint, no dye, no scorches

• There are no microscopic traces of pigment, dye, or scorches constituting the ventral (frontal) and dorsal (back) images. It is not a vapograph due to body heat or funeral annointings. [Antonacci 2000, 9]

• As shown above, the images of the Shroud are better seen as negative images. It is hardly credible that an artist would think to (or even could) create a sham image in such a way in the 13th century. 

• There is no directionality in the image—such as with brush strokes. [Antonacci 2000, Appendix J]

• The image is insoluble in water and is stable when heated. Unlike a scorch, the image does not fluoresce under ultraviolet light. [Antonacci 2000, Appendix J]

• There is no image under the blood spots, implying that the image was formed after the blood was in contact with the Shroud.

• The frontal image and dorsal image dots (“pixels”) are recorded in about the same intensity. That is, each image dot is the same darkness. It is the number of the oxidized image dots on the fibrils in a given area that provides the nuanced shading, not a variance of darkness of the individual dots. [Antonacci 2000, Appendix J]

• The frontal and dorsal images are formed much like a halftone photograph is composed of many black dots of varying sizes. Just like a halftone photo, the Shroud images are more distinct if viewed from a distance rather than up close. [Antonacci 2000, Appendix J]

• The Shroud‘s linen threads are composed of about 200 fibers, with the discolored fibers in only the top two or three layers of fibers in a thread. It is these darkened fibers that form the frontal and dorsal images. The discoloration of the darker areas is straw-yellow, due to dehydrated oxidation. The more the oxidation areas are on a flax thread, the darker the image appears. []

• The light-to-dark gradation is not shadows nor artistic shading. Rather, the image is darker in relation to how close the Shroud was to the corpse—darkest where the Shroud presumably touched the corpse. That is, the image displays three-dimensional characteristics—so much so that it has facilitated a 3-d reconstruction of the body. [Downing 2021] Assuming the Shroud was that of Jesus, we presumably know what he looked like. See https://www.raydowning.com/jesus-store

• No alternative explanations for the image (plus all the other details) stand up to scrutiny. Experiments in physics and chemistry with old linen have failed to reproduce images at all like those on the Shroud of Turin. The images that have been produced are very diffuse, use chemistry unlikely to be known or used in a hurried burial, or are very speculative. [Antonacci 2000; Antonacci 2015]

• The frontal and dorsal images are inexplicable except as a result of some form of high energy particle (or coronal) radiation from the body.  This can even explain why the controversial carbon-14 dating is in the 13th Century. See Radiation Hypothesis.  But that strongly suggests a very anomalous physical event.  (What else could that have been besides a miracle?)

• There also seem to be very, very faint images of spring flowers indigenous to Jerusalem’s vicinity, an early first century Roman coin, bones of the fingers, and teeth.  [Whanger 1998, ch. 7]

• Currently research is being done to scientifically substantiate a proton/neutron burst hypothesis to explain the carbon-14 date as well as the images. This hypothesis could be proven or disproven, were certain samples to be released by the Shroud’s curator and tested. [Rucker 2020a]

 

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